By: Brooke Shannon
We've entered May madness. Hang in there. The finish line is close.
One message I want to shout from the rooftop during this busy season is for every coach, teacher, parent, and youth group leader to please not assume all kids are on social media.
I understand how easy it is to think every teen is on Instagram or Snapchat. More than half of kids are on social media by the age of 12 and Pew Research shows that a majority of teenagers are on TikTok (67%), Instagram (62%) and Snapchat (59%).
Yet, there is a small and mighty group of families delaying social media for our kids. We are worried about anxiety, depression, skyrocketing suicide rates, addiction, predators, the sale of drugs on these platforms, pornographic content, and the list goes on and on.
Waiting is hard for our kids. They often feel left out because so many of their friends are on social media. The benefit of our kids feeling connected though does not outweigh the risks involved with social media.
It makes it even harder for our kids when coaches and leaders in their lives just assume that all kids are on these platforms and in an effort to "meet kids where they are" only communicate via social media.
There's been more than one occasion where my girls did not get the memo about where the team or group was gathering because the info only was communicated via social media.
My message here is not to avoid communicating with teens on social media but to always pair it with other communication channels such as flyers, email, and texts. For younger children in elementary and middle school, please also communicate to the parents with texts or email because not all kids have phones either.
So, if you are organizing the social gathering for the baseball team or the summer youth group party or any other end of the year gathering, be sure you are reaching kids where they are because they are not all on social media!
You've got this 🙌
Brooke Shannon lives in Austin with her husband and three daughters. She is the founder and the Executive Director of the Wait Until 8th pledge. The pledge empowers parents to delay the smartphone for their children until at least 8th grade. Join more than 45,000 parents in saying yes to waiting on the smartphone by pledging today.
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